Kara Chomistek
University of Calgary

Kara is a second year Mechanical Engineering student who is specializing in Biomedical Engineering. Kara has volunteered with childern with disabilities at the Gorden Townsend School, part of the Alberta Childrens Hospital.

Daryl Caswell
University of Calgary

Daryl CASWELL is a professional Engineer, professional Musician and a Designer and Manufacturer of tools for the music industry. He has thirty years of experience as a teacher in engineering and music. Dr. Caswell also uses his multi-disciplinary background in the field of acoustics as well as in design and engineering education.

Clifton Johnston
University of Calgary

Clifton has work as a Professional Engineer in the Aerospace, Oil & Gas, Municipal and Biomedical industries. He has taught design at the University of Calgary for the past 7 years, while continuing his research in Biofluids, sports engineering and design methodology and teaching.

Abstract

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

The University of Calgary Schulich School of Engineering has introduced a set of first year
design projects aimed at preparing engineering students to be both technically capable and
conscious of the impacts of their decisions. The goal is to address the need for today's engineers
to work effectively in global environments where technical solutions must integrate social,
cultural and environmental concerns.

The curriculum enhancement projects seek to teach the students the fundamentals of engineering
design early (first three weeks) in the engineering education process with an emphasis on
environmental and socio-cultural impact to develop socially conscious engineers with a strong
grounding in the basics of engineers design methods. This will develop a new generation of
engineers with a skill set that includes an understanding of the social, cultural and environmental
impacts of their decisions and a comprehension of how these concepts are firmly ingrained in the
creative problem solving process.

The curriculum enhancement projects also seek to quantitatively and qualitatively measure the
student’s retention, enthusiasm and knowledge of the subject as a short term longitudinal study
(4 months). This has been accomplished by providing the students with a small set of open-ended
questions at the completion of the design projects.

Engineering and the social, cultural, and environmental considerations

Course coordinators for the first-year engineering design program at the University of Calgary
(U of C) believe that by introducing problem solving techniques early in the engineering
education process students will be influenced throughout their careers. This is critical as students
are shaped by the behaviors of their engineering educators in both their approach to design, and
integration with the environment 4,5. Introducing problem solving together with social and
cultural awareness is particularly important as engineers are increasingly employed by large
multinational corporations 3. Thus there is a need for engineers who can interact with the public
worldwide as well as provide the most appropriate solution 8,3. Engineering students discover
too soon that the roots of a problem are often much broader than the perceived problem.
Providing an appropriate solution is very challenging and requires engineers who are guided by
their “ethics and are able to bridge the gaps between cultures and between people and
technology”1.

The U of C has implemented this new curriculum enhancement in conjunction with EWB to
create engineers who will have “the ability to integrate widely separate areas of knowledge, as
environmental problems are rarely one dimensional” 1. This is important because in the last 50
years there has been a shift which is reshaping the engineering profession. Engineers now must
be “responsible stewards rather than negligent trustees of the environment” 8. Instead of being
seen “both as problem-causers and problem-solvers,” as said by J. M. N. Van Kasteren.